Europe is on the brink of war, Defence Minister Peter Dutton has warned after the US said Russia could invade Ukraine within days.
Pro-Russian separatists have been fighting in eastern Ukraine since 2014 but now Russia has placed about 150,000 troops backed by tanks, artillery, attack helicopters and fighter jets near the border.
This amounts to more than half of Russia’s total ground forces – which are at a high level of readiness and could invade at short notice, according to Western allies.
Speaking to the Today show on Friday morning, Mr Dutton warned: ‘I think we’re just on the cusp now of an all-out conflict and I think it’s tragic and we’ll see terrible scenes unfolding and it’s obvious that Ukraine’s been under cyber attack for some time.
‘The Russians have amassed ships in the Black Sea, got troops coming in from different directions and you would expect that President Putin, who obviously can’t be taken at his word, is manufacturing some sort of trigger or is in the process of executing the final stages of his plan to go into the Ukraine.
He added: ‘I think every sign indicates that that’s the case. I mean, you can hope for an 11th-hour miracle. There are lots of European leaders who have tried to avert this but it seems President Putin is pretty intent on his action and direction.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (right) during a visit to the front line not far from the pro-Russian militants-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine, 17 February 2022
‘That really is going to result in the loss of life, the loss of innocent life and we’ve seen it before in Eastern Europe. We don’t want it repeated but we live in a very uncertain world.’
Russia has accused Joe Biden of stoking tensions after the US President said Moscow was engaged in a ‘false flag’ operation that would see them manufacture an excuse to invade.
‘We have reason to believe they are engaged in a false flag operation to have an excuse to go in. Every indication we have is they’re prepared to go into Ukraine and attack Ukraine,’ Mr Biden told reporters as he departed the White House on Thursday.
‘My sense is this will happen in the next several days.’
US deployments in Europe in January, before Biden ordered more troops to the region as the crisis escalated
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the UN in New York (pictured fist bumping the UK’s Minister of State for Europe James Cleverly) on Thursday warned that Vladimir Putin might launch a chemical weapons attack before invading Ukraine after Russia demanded America pull all of its troops out of Central and Eastern Europe
Mr Dutton said Australia has not been asked to provide troops to Ukraine should there be any military retaliation.
‘This is an issue NATO and Europe need to deal with and those European leaders really need to step up and put the pressure, even more pressure, on Russia to stop them,’ he said.
Labor deputy leader Richard Marles said the warning from the defence minister was dire.
‘We all hope for that 11th-hour miracle. I think what’s really important is that the international community is of one, giving support to Ukraine,’ he told the Today show.
‘Russia should be withdrawing, obviously, and de-escalating but it’s really important at this moment that the world stands with Ukraine.’
Overnight, Mr Biden ordered Secretary of State Antony Blinken to change his travel plans at the last minute to speak at a United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine.
Mr Blinken told the council that Russia planned to manufacture a pretext for an invasion.
‘It could be a fabricated so-called terrorist bombing inside Russia, the invented discovery of a mass grave, a staged drone strike against civilians, or a fake – even a real – attack using chemical weapons. Russia may describe this event as ethnic cleansing, or a genocide,’ he said.
US warns Putin might launch false flag chemical weapons attack before invading Ukraine: Russia expels America’s deputy ambassador and demands Biden pull all troops out of Central and Eastern Europe
By Chris Pleasance for MailOnline
The US on Thursday warned that Vladimir Putin might launch a false flag chemical weapons attack before invading Ukraine after Russia expelled America’s deputy ambassador and demanded Washington pull all of its troops out of Central and Eastern Europe.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia’s plans for a false flag operation could include a chemical weapons attack on its own people as it tries to manufacture a pretext for invading Ukraine.
Addressing the United Nations Security Council, he gave the fullest account of what Washington knows of Russia’s plans and he demanded that Russia immediately begin withdrawing troops from Ukraine’s borders.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited soldiers stationed not far Donetsk, a city controlled by pro-Russian militants, on Thursday as the US warned that Russia’s President Putin might launch a chemical weapons attack before invading Ukraine
Blinken, who upended his travel plans to speak at the UN, said Russia was preparing for an invasion ‘in the coming days.’ ‘We don’t know exactly the formal take,’ he said, explaining that he believes Putin will start an invasion by creating an excuse to attack.
‘It could be a fabricated so-called terrorist bombing inside Russia, the invented discovery of the mass grave, a staged drone strike against civilians, or a fake – even a real – attack using chemical weapons.’
It came hours after Moscow’s foreign ministry dashed what little hope remained for diplomacy in a lengthy document handed to the US ambassador to Russia demanding that all of Washington’s weapons in central and eastern Europe and the Baltics be removed – along with all weapons already sent to Ukraine – and repeated demands that Ukraine is banned from joining NATO.
In the document, which the US is expected to reject, Moscow accused Washington of failing to respond constructively to the demands it presented in December, including for a halt to the eastern enlargement of NATO.
Russia’s ‘red lines’ were still being ignored, it said in a riposte to US and NATO counter-proposals received last month.
At the same time, the US deputy ambassador to Moscow was expelled – prompting Joe Biden to say he now expects Russia to invade Ukraine in a ‘matter of days’ and that he will not be speaking to Putin in the meantime.
It comes after Boris Johnson accused Russia of staging a ‘false flag’ operation in eastern Ukraine by firing mortars at a kindergarten in order to give Putin a ‘spurious pretext’ to invade the country.
The UK Prime Minister, speaking during a visit to RAF Waddington, said he fears that more such attacks will take place in the coming days and that the picture on Ukraine’s border ‘continues to be very grim’.
Boris Johnson, pictured at RAF Waddington today, accused Putin of launching a ‘false flag’ operation in Donbas with the aim of providing a ‘spurious pretext’ for an invasion of Ukraine
Artillery has opened fire in eastern Ukraine – striking a kindergarten located in Stanytsia Luhanska, on the Ukrainian side of the frontline with Russian-backed rebel forces
He later announced in a tweet that he will travel to the Munich Security Conference, which Russia said last month it would not attend, for ‘discussion with partners’. ‘The West is united: De-escalation and dialogue is the only way forward,’ he wrote.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, speaking after the talks with her Ukrainian counterpart on Thursday, said the Kremlin’s demand the UK recognise the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk showed ‘flagrant disregard’ for Moscow’s peace process commitments.
‘The Duma’s request that Vladimir Putin recognises the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent shows flagrant disregard for Russia’s commitments under the Minsk agreements, Truss said on Thursday.
‘If this request were accepted, it would represent a further attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, signal an end to the Minsk process and demonstrate a Russian decision to choose a path of confrontation over dialogue.
Pictured: Marine Guard of the State Border Guard Service maneuver during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visit to get acquainted with the order of service at Azov sea in Mariupol, Ukraine, 17 February 2022
This handout video grab taken and released by the Russian Defence Ministry on February 17, 2022, shows the Grad multiple rocket launcher firing at mock enemy targets during a joint exercises of the armed forces of Russia and Belarus
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin chairs a video conference meeting on Thursday
‘We urge Russia to end its pattern of destabilising behaviour against Ukraine and to implement the commitments it has freely signed up to, including the Minsk agreements.’
Blinken on Wednesday criticized the move by Russian lawmakers towards recognising the two Russian-backed breakaway regions as independent.
Meanwhile satellite images revealed a new pontoon bridge has been build across the Pripyat River in Belarus, close to Chernobyl and about 80 miles north of Kiev. It is feared the bridge, which has appeared close to areas where Russian tanks are stationed, could be used for an assault on the capital.
And on Thursday evening, Yaşar Halit Çevik, chief monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said that some 500 explosions had been recorded between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. In a sign that tensions could be easing, he said: ‘After 11.20 (am) we have recorded about 30 explosions.’
Artillery opened fire at multiple points along the frontline between Ukraine and Russia-backed rebels in the country’s east today, with at least two locations hit with witnesses reporting hearing artillery firing at a third
Ukraine’s ministry of defence issued images of the damaged building early Thursday, saying it is located in Stanytsia Luhanska and was hit by shells fired by Russian rebels. Pro-Moscow accounts then picked up the same images, but claimed the building is actually on their side of the frontline and was hit by Kiev’s men
An image put out by the Ukrainian security services shows a partially-destroyed water pipe in the town of Popasna
A satellite image reveals that a new pontoon bridge has been constructed across the Pripyat River in Belarus (left), around 80 miles north of Kiev amid fears it could be used to provide an attack route to the capital
Before and after images show how the bridge has been constructed in recent days, providing a route for Russian tanks to cross the river and advance south towards Kiev
From pretext to ground troops: The four steps in a Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to Antony Blinken at the UN
Blinken said he was outlining Russia’s plans during a meeting of the UN Security Council ‘not to start a war but to prevent one’
Secretary of State Antony Blinken used a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to outline how the US believes a Russian invasion of Ukraine would unfold
1) Manufactured pretext – Russia would accuse Ukraine of a violent outrage such as a fabricated terrorist bombing inside Russia, a faked mass grave, a drone strike against civilians or a fake – or even a real – chemical weapons attack.
2) Emergency meetings in Moscow – Blinken said the highest levels of government may ‘theatrically’ convene emergency meetings to address the so-called crisis, before issuing a proclamation that they must defend Russians in Ukraine.
3) Attack – the next stage will come with Russian missiles and bombs dropping on Ukraine, jammed communications, and cyberattacks designed to shut down ‘key Ukrainian institutions.’
4) Ground invasion – Russian tanks and soldiers will advance on key targets that have already been identified and mapped out in detailed plans. Blinken said that would include Ukraine’s capital Kiev.
Blinken offered another chilling line.
‘Conventional attacks are not all that Russia plans to inflict upon the people of Ukraine,’ he said.
‘We have information that indicates Russia will target specific groups of Ukrainians.’
The US has faced repeated questions about the validity of its intelligence. And those seated around the table from Blinken will remember the false claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction presented there almost 20 years ago.
‘Let me be clear, I am here today not to start a war but to prevent one,’ said Blinken.
‘Information presented here is validated by what we’ve seen unfolding in plain sight before our eyes for months.’
